It's not just nostalgia

[Daniele63]

A thought I had for some time (sorry if it's not super cohesive.)

I think very often when the Indie web is discussed, a word thrown a lot is nostalgia.
Sometimes people say those communities only exist because of that nostalgia and that we're just trying to relive le "good ol days".

But I think that if a lot of us are embracing old web / older styles is not nostalgia, it's because it's just better than the bloated, impersonal garbage we have in the 2020s. I've never had so much fun on the web than I had by creating my website, participating in forums, or discussing in antiquated chatting protocols and chatrooms, why should I give that up? I never experienced the days of GeoCities, but I appreciate what it is on a fundamental level: a collection of personal websites where I could glimpse what a person thought about, their ideas, their passions, and I appreciate forums for offering true freedom and data ownership.

Even the old Web 1.0 style to me is more stimulating and appealing than the flat, AI-ridden websites that all look the same.

To make an analogy with the real world, I can be in love with an architectural style from 300 years ago, that doesn't mean I'm personally stuck in the past and refuse to move on, why must I embrace Brutalist architecture if it looks horrible and makes me depressed? Some things were just better before.

There's nothing wrong in preferring an older visual style for the web, especially when it's still so young, yet tech bros will shame you if you build anything that doesn't look like the other 1 gazillion Wordpress sites or AI slop that exist. Do you see the problem?


So for me the Indie Web is not about being stuck in the past, it's about creating a better present/future, we're just embracing parts of the past because they were great things. I can like an old chatting protocol like IRC not because of nostalgia but because it's superior at what it does to bloated alternatives like Discord.

I'd like to know, what do you think is the role of nostalgia in this movement?
And, what do you think of people calling websites like this one nostalgia-bait?

[Noah_S]

If it was only nostalgia there wouldn't be so many young people here

[lakes]

Well, I think nostalgia still plays a role in it for a lot of people, myself included. But I can acknowledge that and still say part of why I'm drawn to it is as a way of distancing myself from big tech. After all, I was gradually getting into FOSS before indie web stuff & now I'm on Linux, use a bunch of messaging protocols instead of just Discord, etc.
I don't think everything modern tech does is bad to be clear. Things like better sandboxing, adding built-in adblockers & tracker blockers to browsers, etc are all good things. And as much as I hate cryptocurrency, sometimes it's useful if you just wanna keep your purchases private (like a lot of DIY HRT guides tell you to buy cryptocurrency for example), depending on how you go about it. But I think a big part of why people are here is that big tech isn't doing as good a job pretending to serve its customers anymore. For example, corporations didn't have to push smartphones into everything when they were 1st built. They just marketed them and people wanted to buy them for better or worse. Now it's like they're trying to push LLMs into everything AND some news outlets are even trying to make Flock Cameras in the USA into a culture war issue despite it being something pretty much all US citizens agree is bad. I think the idea that you could force the public to adopt a technology in places where it was utterly useless or worse than useless was NFTs, but I could be wrong.

[Dan Q]

@Noah_S has hit the nail on the head.

Nostalgia

Me? I am nostalgic about the old, old Web. Even back to the point at which it was, objectively, a bit shit: I'm talking about the time when the best browser would never run more than four simultaneous connections (try downloading an image gallery like that!), when we used directories because search was no good yet, when there was no CSS and even images and tables didn't have 100% support, when there were no debuggers so if something didn't work you just had to keep tweaking it and refreshing until it did... even then, there was something magical about the Web as a platform, and I loved it.

It hit its stride in under a decade and it felt like everybody who was anybody had a homepage. Some of us even had "weblogs". And creativity ran rampant. Despite the confines of the limited elements, even-more limited CSS, and yet-more-still limited browser compatibility... people did absolutely amazing things. Webcomics like Argon Zark showed us how a new medium can provide new storytelling opportunities. Innovators leaned into fledgling audio technologies and brought us something that would nowadays be called a "podcast" but back then didn't yet have a name. Forums and chat rooms were vibrant and lively and fundamentally human. And for a generation that grew up with computing being a lonely, isolating experience, it was incredibly freeing and liberating to find "your people" everywhere you looked.

The Indieweb

When I started doing Indieweb things... and, if I'm honest, I've probably always being doing Indieweb things, even before the word existed... and when I started hearing about "web revivalism" and the "smolweb" and so on... I expected it to be... well... I expected it to be full of old farts like me! Nostalgic luddites, fighting against the faceless insincerity of the big social networks by sticking to our guns like we always had: making stuff that reminded us of when the Web was fun until, gradually, we became outdated and irrelevant and the Web died.

But that's not what I found. I was absolutely gobsmacked to discover that these Web revivalist spaces... are full of young people! Sure, there's older folks like me (and plenty much older still), but the movement is alive and buzzing with the vibrancy and energy and optimism and idealism of a generation that were too young to remember the early Web.

That gives me enormous hope. It makes me so proud to be part of something that's got the potential to live forever. The Web is ours. It belongs to us: the humans who live on it. It does not belong to the corporations. It does not belong to the governments. It certainly does not belong to the robots. It belongs to real, living, breathing humans with whom you can make a genuine connection regardless of distance. It belongs to the artists and the poets and the diarists and the musicians, to the videographers and the hobbyists and the explorers and the collectors. And, crucially, it belongs to young and old alike.

Hope and pride

Every single time I find a personal website belonging to somebody born after, say, 1997 or so - somebody who was younger than seven, or not even born, when Facebook was invented, I guess! - it makes me feel hopeful for our future. Not just our future as Netizens (a word popularised in about 1995 and that I'm not willing to let go of!)... but our future as a species. Because standing up for a space that we all share - a space that transcends borders and brings us together, and that we shape together - is a fundamentally hopeful activity. It says "no" to the people who want to profit off our attention. It says "no" to being pitted against one another. Instead, it says "let's build something together".

And that's just fucking beautiful.


So a huge thank you to every single one of you that's young enough that you don't remember the Web the way I do... but punk enough to bring it back anyway. I love the Web you're creating.

(Wow, this got all mushy and sentimental. That wasn't what I intended when I started typing! Sorry!)

[rnottelovesowls]

my theory with modern tech is that corporations don't want us to have any fun. that's why the big tech products' customization options are only, "pick light or dark mode. now pick an avatar and wallpaper. now here's an emoji keyboard. take it or leave it." and where's the fun in that? where's the whimsy? the heart and soul? the only modern tech product that seems to have any "whimsy" in is it LLMs... and we all know how much people love those...

i don't know what changed. did the whole tech world collectively decide that colors other than black, white, and blue are only for kids? they're so boooooooring. it's a far cry from the classics of microsoft plus!, after dark, frutiger aero, and clear colored game boys. remember the flying toaster screensaver? remember the underwater windows 98 desktop theme? i believe that's what indie web netizens are most concerned about: they just want technology to be fun again. because if we aren't living to have fun, then what are we living for?

[lakes]

my theory with modern tech is that corporations don't want us to have any fun. that's why the big tech products' customization options are only, "pick light or dark mode. now pick an avatar and wallpaper. now here's an emoji keyboard. take it or leave it." and where's the fun in that? where's the whimsy? the heart and soul? the only modern tech product that seems to have any "whimsy" in is it LLMs... and we all know how much people love those...

i agree, but i won't say it's completely lost. there are a few new-ish customization features like for example, a lot of browsers have added the ability to add vertical tabs instead of horizontal ones. people attribute this to zen browser, but i think vivaldi was the 1st to have this feature. some open source android apps also still let you choose a color for your theme, but even then it's limited to like, 1 color + dark/light mode and that's it.

[KeyJayHD]

I do think nostalgia plays a large part of the zeitgeist surrounding IndieWeb. Personally what drew me into it was less the look and more the intent around decentralized control over ones own web presence. I've been self hosting and have been a filthy sailor for a while now and the more that I sink my time into social, the more I begin to see how much I hate it and how sick it's been making me. Honestly it's insanity at this point; constantly refreshing each feed expecting something to be interesting or different enough for me to stay even longer than I should. More times than ever before, I just get pissed on some reactionary content that was planted there for my engagement; hook line and sinker.

Personally I will say though that I am more of a fan of aspects of modern design (not the blocky structured lifeless crap that has proliferated the web) and I tend to try to lean more modern though still trying to learn and make things interesting. But after browsing many sites through places like NeoCities, even though I know in the back of my mind that, "My god, this is a mobile compatibility and limited bandwidth nightmare" or "I'd probably never do this for a client", I also can say that with many sites I've run into there, many are visually interesting or stunning in their own sometime incredibly cool ways! Even with some of the more simple interesting ones they'll make me right click -> inspect with me asking, wait, how the heck did they do this and lay this out? While not always practical, still can be very interesting to learn from.

All in all, I think the goal of ones personal IndieWeb is...I guess to make the web that you want to live in, however way you want to make and experience it, and not let anyone tell you how you are supposed to experience and enjoy it. You can be nostalgic, you can be modern, you can be super retro, you can give the finger to mobile devices entirely, heck, pump up your site with full BMP images with free floating gifs everywhere for all I care and throw every modern web design convention out the window. Point is, It's yours Doesn't mean I'll like it or all of it, but it deserves a voice none the less.

[Dan Q]

a lot of browsers have added the ability to add vertical tabs instead of horizontal ones. people attribute this to zen browser, but i think vivaldi was the 1st to have this feature

Actually, vertical tabs predate Vivaldi by fifteen years! To the best of my knowledge they were first implemented in a browser with the same founder, though! Vertical tabs first appeared in... Opera 4.0 in the year 2000.

Look, I spun up a Windows XP box and used it, by way of demonstration. Look at my tabs down the left-hand side:

(In fact, while the forum was sleeping I wrote a whole blog post about the history of vertical tabs and why they're so great, inspired by your post!)

[lakes]

Actually, vertical tabs predate Vivaldi by fifteen years! To the best of my knowledge they were first implemented in a browser with the same founder, though! Vertical tabs first appeared in... Opera 4.0 in the year 2000.

Look, I spun up a Windows XP box and used it, by way of demonstration. Look at my tabs down the left-hand side:

(In fact, while the forum was sleeping I wrote a whole blog post about the history of vertical tabs and why they're so great, inspired by your post!)

Damn! I guess it was because I didn't even know Opera existed at the time and thus didnt really experience it for myself. But it makes sense because Vivaldi is supposed to be like older versions of Opera except using Chromium.

[Melooon]

I had someone asking me related questions to this, so I’ll note down some thoughts as a way to process them, although I’ve not read the thread in detail yet!

I think nostalgia is a byproduct of the web revival/indie web, its not the other way around. We are not reacting to nostalgia, we are creating (often mistaken) nostalgia as we explore ideas about what the future of the web can be. The aesthetics and ideas of nostalgia are occurring in spaces like this because they are natural outcomes of the more interesting thing that’s happening

The more interesting thing is the implosion of time that has been made possible by digital technologies. For the first time in human history a person alive today has near unlimited access to thousands of years of cultural objects and ideas (with a very heavy bias towards things created since the web or just before it). We (everyone, not just the web revival people) are starting to come to terms with the fact that everything is blending, the 90s can be today, the 00s are tomorrow, the 80s will be this evening. That is the web of ideas that flow and disconnect and connect again.

Its easy to dismiss things like the 80s retro wave of the late 2010s as just an aesthetic trend (or the early-00s wave happening now), but it’s not. It’s our collective identity seeing it’s own reflection, and drawing a new version of the reflection it sees. Nostalgia implies linear progression, it depends on the idea that there was a before and a now, and that the before is separate to the now. That assumption is wrong, especially within the bounds digital media (and digital media is a VAST part of our lives today).

The thing that confuses people (particularly older techy people, since most teens tend to be more in tune with things), is that they mistake the outcome of the web revival for its cultural origin - they think its about making weird looking websites, and they assume that weird looking websites are analogues of old websites; and therefore they conclude that we want to make old websites. No

The origin is the desire to explore, deconstruct and remake the vast cultural legacy of digital media that surrounds us. The outcome is the language.

If I say “I Love You” to someone and I really mean it; it does not matter if I say it in English, or Greek, or Chinese, or any other language; although there is beauty in the sound of each, and its useful if they understand me! But it’s the meaning that matters and the reason I say it.

The aesthetic of the web revival is a language, constructed out of the ruins of older web eras; but the meaning of the web revival is utterly unrelated to the past.

[lakes]

I had someone asking me related questions to this, so I’ll note down some thoughts as a way to process them, although I’ve not read the thread in detail yet!

I think nostalgia is a byproduct of the web revival/indie web, its not the other way around. We are not reacting to nostalgia, we are creating (often mistaken) nostalgia as we explore ideas about what the future of the web can be. The aesthetics and ideas of nostalgia are occurring in spaces like this because they are natural outcomes of the more interesting thing that’s happening

The more interesting thing is the implosion of time that has been made possible by digital technologies. For the first time in human history a person alive today has near unlimited access to thousands of years of cultural objects and ideas (with a very heavy bias towards things created since the web or just before it). We (everyone, not just the web revival people) are starting to come to terms with the fact that everything is blending, the 90s can be today, the 00s are tomorrow, the 80s will be this evening. That is the web of ideas that flow and disconnect and connect again.

Its easy to dismiss things like the 80s retro wave of the late 2010s as just an aesthetic trend (or the early-00s wave happening now), but it’s not. It’s our collective identity seeing it’s own reflection, and drawing a new version of the reflection it sees. Nostalgia implies linear progression, it depends on the idea that there was a before and a now, and that the before is separate to the now. That assumption is wrong, especially within the bounds digital media (and digital media is a VAST part of our lives today).

The thing that confuses people (particularly older techy people, since most teens tend to be more in tune with things), is that they mistake the outcome of the web revival for its cultural origin - they think its about making weird looking websites, and they assume that weird looking websites are analogues of old websites; and therefore they conclude that we want to make old websites. No

The origin is the desire to explore, deconstruct and remake the vast cultural legacy of digital media that surrounds us. The outcome is the language.

If I say “I Love You” to someone and I really mean it; it does not matter if I say it in English, or Greek, or Chinese, or any other language; although there is beauty in the sound of each, and its useful if they understand me! But it’s the meaning that matters and the reason I say it.

The aesthetic of the web revival is a language, constructed out of the ruins of older web eras; but the meaning of the web revival is utterly unrelated to the past.

I think you put something into words that I don't know how to explain. The thing is that I don't actually wanna go back to being a teenager or the 2000s. But now I'm able to appreciate the creativity and the lack of near-omnipresent monopolies that were online when I was too young to think about those things.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

I don't think that nostalgia ever comes alone - usually, it is something connected to the notion of nostalgia: Security (I well remember reading an outrageous interview with Mike Oldfield were he wanted back a UK were "policeman with big hats" make things safe), adventure, or - in the case of the web revival - freedom and creativity. I'd say that the nostalgic element is more of a signal, a kind of code that can be used to gather and to communicate the mutual desire. What is projected into the time and the codes associated with it is, however, wholly a product of the contemporary - it may or may not have been present in the time that is target of the nostalgic. A good example for this are the people who go to medieval fairs and reenactments - they haven't experienced the medieval age, but they long for something associated with it.

So it is not "just" nostalgia, but it still is nostalgia. If not, there would not be any need to bother with the limitations that come with the urge to replicate the codes of a time. However, that is not a bad thing - the important question is not if something is reminiscent of some begone time, but what the codes that are used signal.

[puf]

well for me, it actually did begin with nostalgia.. but it slowly evolved to something else

i grew up with the 2000s internet, and when i first started making websites ( about 10 years ago ),
i desperately wanted to recreate the digital world that had made me so happy.
it was the internet i had made my own, and somewhere i had once felt that i belonged.

i saw the ( mainstream ) internet become almost everything i didn't want from being online :
chasing reach and numbers, social media, personal brands, algorithms, oversharing, advertising,
constantly adapting yourself and your creations to whatever a platform wants from you ..
sometimes it feels as though everyone is simultaneously being advertised to and
expected to become an advertisement themselves. i didn't want any of that.

but the more i tried to make the present feel like the past, the more frustrated i became..

for quite a while, i think i approached the web revival almost like a mission to recover something that had been lost.
ironically, being so driven by this "mission" made me start caring about reaching more people, watching numbers,
and having a "relevant" online presence ..
all the very things about the modern web that i was trying to escape from in the first place !!

eventually, i realized that trying so hard to recreate the past was like keeping an open wound -
it was bringing pressure into the little corner of the web i had built to be a safe place, 
and that wasn't making me happy either.

what i missed wasn't really a particular year, browser, or aesthetic.
i missed an internet that felt small, personal and sincere -
where people made things by hand simply because they wanted them to exist,
where curiosity could lead you from one strange little page to another,
and where visiting someone's website felt a little like visiting their room.

so i've reached the point where i stopped trying to recreate the old web exactly.
now i would rather take the things i loved about it and grow something new from them !

now, i make little websites because making them makes me happy.
i share thoughts, ordinary moments and pretty things because perhaps they will make somebody else happy too ..
there doesn't need to be reach, numbers, a personal brand, or a "mission" behind it.
a page is allowed to exist simply because somebody had a funny idea on a tuesday afternoon and wanted to make it real !

and i think that has made the current small, homemade web much more exciting to me.
i don't see it as a substitute or imitation of the old internet anymore.
it is its own little world, still being shaped by all the people creating things inside it,
and i think there is so much potential in that.

i'm sure nostalgia brings many of us here, and there is nothing wrong with loving the internet we remember.
it certainly brought me here !
but, at least in my case, nostalgia wasn't a very happy place to stay forever.

nostalgia may have shown me the path, but now i would much rather use it as a little seed for something new ..
and see what grows from it.

[Magic16]

so i've reached the point where i stopped trying to recreate the old web exactly.
now i would rather take the things i loved about it and grow something new from them !

now, i make little websites because making them makes me happy.
i share thoughts, ordinary moments and pretty things because perhaps they will make somebody else happy too ..
there doesn't need to be reach, numbers, a personal brand, or a "mission" behind it.
a page is allowed to exist simply because somebody had a funny idea on a tuesday afternoon and wanted to make it real !

and i think that has made the current small, homemade web much more exciting to me.
i don't see it as a substitute or imitation of the old internet anymore.
it is its own little world, still being shaped by all the people creating things inside it,
and i think there is so much potential in that.

At the end of the day, isn't that the whole point of all this to begin with? Not to recreate nostalgia, but to give people a place that they could call their own. To organically surf the web as one would a place in real life, with no algorithm dictating how one goes about doing so. I have a feeling that many people are looking for this kind of experience.

The indie web is considered kinda separate from "the mainstream internet," but I really don't think the mainstream internet is going to stay as social media profiles forever. Though if this did become a mainstream phenomenon, would that make the experience more or less exciting than it is now?

[Xyphien]

I completely agree with what you're saying and it's something I've been telling people a lot for everything I do. I will say, I'm a little on the extreme end of the "Nostalgia" wave. My basement is literally a retro game room & arcade. I have a motorcycle arcade, nearly every console from Atari 2600 and up as well as a few misc consoles sprinkled in here and there. It's not so much living in the past, but it's the simplicity of it. I put something in and turn it on and it's just going. No "Gotta wait 30 minutes for a 128gb update for a 600gb game..." or "Let me hop on and see what the algorithm is going to shove down my throat" if we're referring to the web. Everything was made FOR the people back in the day and not as a cash grab. Websites allowed you to customize them, change them, have features that were fun and pro-community. Now it's all about keeping you addicted and hooked at staring at their screen as long as possible.

I think people see it, and often times it's designed in a way that's "nostalgic" some (such as myself) play into the nostalgia gimmick but it is just out right better than modern sites now that are based around nothing but making money.